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Carbon offset cash-in questioned

SOME firms are making a killing from schemes designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while doing little or nothing in return.

The market in carbon offsets, which allows companies to invest in renewable energy as a way of mitigating their own greenhouse gas emissions – almost doubled in 2006 to &dollar;5 billion, the World Bank said on 2 May. According to a recent report in the London-based Financial Times, some of that money is going to oil companies that are simply pumping CO2 into oilfields to extract more oil. They would have done this anyway, so profits from selling …